By Staff Correspondent
The annual Aero MRO India A&D 2032 event, organized by the MRO Association of India, in Delhi on November 21–22 was an enormous success. This year’s subject, “Preparing for the New Horizon,” emphasized the enormous development potential of India’s aircraft maintenance and repair industry.
The Chief Guest, Piyush Srivastava, Senior Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India, stressed that Go First Airline’s “belly up” could have been avoided had there been an engine maintenance and repair facility in India. Sending engines overseas for servicing is not a cost-effective way to run a carrier.
“It is not an efficient way to operate an airline to remove the engine here in India, pay to transport it somewhere while the aircraft is on the ground, or rent another engine.” “We still remember our recent encounter with Go First. “It’s supplier, was not in a position to help the airline due to supply chain disruption, and the airline went belly up, which is not a good thing for the aviation sector,” he continued. “It probably would not have landed on its belly if we had the necessary MRO services in the country.”
According to Srivastava, it is past due for the nation to create MRO facilities, now, only 15% of the MRO activity for Indian airlines is conducted in India.
He emphasized the lack of engine and component MRO facilities in India, saying, “Any maintenance work we perform here is at the bare minimum, focusing online and airframe maintenance, we need to cover the ground in component and engine maintenance also.”
Srivastava stated that because of their significant orders, the airlines had the upper hand. He said that they have the authority to require engine and aircraft manufacturers to establish an MRO facility in India. People occasionally contact me, particularly those working in the defence ministry and other government agencies, to inquire as to why I don’t make it essential to only purchase engines and aircraft from companies that have maintenance facilities in India. “We have discussed this idea, of course, but I feel that this is just another version of license permit raj, which I find objectionable,” he remarked. He pointed out that the simplest path is for the airline sector to acknowledge that they must take this action.
With two of the largest aircraft orders ever placed by domestic airlines, IndiGo and Air India, with Airbus and Boeing in 2023, India stands out as a significant aircraft buyer. India is the world’s third-largest aircraft purchaser, however there are very few engine maintenance and repair facilities in the country. As a result, almost 92% of the engine maintenance and repair business is outsourced to other countries.
The whole size of the Indian MRO business is anticipated to increase significantly, from around US$ 1.7 billion in 2021 to over US$ 4 billion by 2031.
On the first day of the conference, a few noteworthy topics that were brought up were: Two years ago, IndiGo began the process of requesting permission from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to purchase non-structural, non-critical equipment. IndiGo uses native components for its aircraft. “It’s the right path; acceptance will follow.” We at IndiGo began the effort some years ago to identify non-essential products, such as paper, or non-essential, non-load-carrying items for cabins. We now have the internal capacity to fabricate a component and install it on our aircraft,” stated Parichay Datta, IndiGo’s Vice President of Engineering and Maintenance.
There was no resistance observed from the regulator. They were quite quick to get us clearance. We will continue with many more non-structural, non-critical objects within the cabin once we finished the components we started with,” Datta said.
“I had to bring in printer paper for an airplane. How come I can’t use local paper? Even the stickers seen on the soap dispenser bottles, toilet buffers, and tables. We are examining these minor issues. It ought to be okay if it is not a crucial component. I made it a point to specify in several leases that non-essential components should be accepted. The Chief Technical Officer of Air India, Sisira Kanta Dash, stated, “We are currently obtaining approvals.” Part 21 of the Parts Manufacturer Approval (PMA), as it is known in the aviation industry, covers non-critical parts of an aircraft and requires compliance with procuring goods, appliances, and parts with suitable designs through approved businesses.
Indian airlines have made significant orders for aircraft, which will result in a large fleet as well as favourable conditions for leasing aircraft and the use of locally produced non-critical parts, which will save domestic carriers over 40% of the cost. According to industry leaders, some parts will also have a shorter turnaround time—from six months to less than 30 days.
Leaders in the MRO, leasing, OEM, and airline industries analysed and addressed several significant issues pertaining to the Indian MRO business with an eye on the New Horizon. These included the following: Indian MRO Strategy to Prepare for the New Horizon; Strategy to Mitigate Supply Chain Challenges in the Indian Airlines Sector; Invest India – Making India a Global Hub for MRO Services by 2030; Leasing Ecosystem for Aviation Assets in India to Promote the Airline; and need of OEMs’ support to manage Airlines/MROs.
One of the biggest MRO firms in the world is willing to establish a joint venture with an Indian company to establish a presence in the nation. According to Bouhassis, StandardAero, a US-based company that now manages 55 MRO sites across 13 countries, will decide after assessing the engine workload at Safran’s proposed Hyderabad plant.
Every participant in Aero MRO India 2023 looked forward to the first day’s evening Award Ceremony. There was no exception this year either. This year, the MRO Association of India established the Jubilee Awards, a brand-new award category. The Association established this award category in honour of the individual’s contributions to the MRO Industry during his career.
The recipients of the awards were: Air Cmde. R. P. Kashyap, who received the Diamond Jubilee Award in recognition of his 62 years of unwavering support for the Indian MRO Industry; Ravi Menon, who received the Golden Jubilee Award for his 62 years of unwavering support for the Indian MRO Industry; K. V. Krishnan, who received the Ruby Jubilee Award for his 44 years of unwavering support for the Indian MRO Industry; C. S. Tomar, who received the Ruby Jubilee Award for his 43 years of unwavering support for the Indian MRO Industry; and Bharat Malkani, who received the Silver Jubilee Award for his 25 years of unwavering support for the Indian MRO Industry.
Following this category, P. K. Chattopadhyay and H. S. Khola, both former Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) executives, were given the Lifetime Achievement Award in absentia for their contributions to the Indian MRO Industry.
The enthusiasm increased significantly when the customary category of prizes for the firms’ accomplishments over the previous year was announced.
Day 2 of Aero MRO India 2023 was devoted to the armed forces. The discussion was led by Bharat Malkani, President of the MRO Association of India, and Chairperson of MAX MRO, which is heavily involved in defence MRO work. The tactics and advancements made in the field of MRO by the military and the civil sector were the main topics of discussion. The Indian Air Force has previously delegated a portion of its maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) workload to the civil MRO sector under the “plant-in-plant” approach, whereby civil MROs staff base-of-duty (BRDs) to assist the IAF in fulfilling this obligation.
The topic was Strategy and Progress in Convergence of Civil-Military MRO. The participants were Air Marshal C R Mohan, an air officer maintenance in the Indian Air Force, Lt. Gen. Ajay Kumar Suri, Director General Army Aviation, Air Headquarters, and DIG. Jasbir Singh, General Manager of Heli-MRO at HAL Bengaluru, and Jamal Taha, Head of Air Maintenance, Indian Coast Guard
The Indian Coast Guard and Army demonstrated an ardent desire for assistance from the Indian Civil MRO Industry. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited now does MRO work for all the nation’s armed services at its several MROs for the forces’ transport, fighter, and helicopter platforms.
The Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Maintenance Plan, Indian Air Force, Air Vice Marshal KAA Sanjeeb, VSM, moderated the second section of this conversation and engagement with the MROs and OEMs, both civil and military. The other panelists included Brig (Retd.) Amit Mukherjee, General Manager of Elcom Systems, Mangesh Karyakarte, Chief Sales Officer of Air Works Group, Abhisek Rashtradhyaksha, Head of Business Development of GMR Aero Technic, and Mangalam Pandey, Lead Technical Service of Air India.
The Indian Air Force’s Assistant Chief of Air Staff Transport & Helicopter, Air Vice Marshal P. Sreekumar, VSM, emphasized the need for collaboration between the IAF and the Civil MRO Industry for MRO services for their fleet of aircraft and helicopters.
The topic of keeping MRO work for BA/GA platforms domestically instead of exporting them abroad was the focus of a thoughtful conversation during the entire two-day event.
